A Survivor's Guide to Reality PM

When people are put into group to perform, whether it's on a television contest in Australia or in your workplace, the interactions are much the same.  So why don't we learn what we can about workforce management from the reality show Survivor?  It's much more fun to learn from someone else's pain rather than your own.

In case you've been living in cave (or a particularly busy assignment), here's the short short version of CBS' Surivor, the Australian Outback:  There are two tribes, Ogakor and Kucha, each initially comprising eight members, living off their wits, whatever food they can find and the ego-feeding celebrity of national television in the wilderness of the Australian Outback. Each week, the contestants vote to send one of their colleagues back to civilization. Every week, there are competitions that will protect the winning teams or individuals from getting the boot. The last one standing--dirty and tired but fabulously famous--wins a million bucks. 

If you can't see how the Survivor scenario relates to your workplace, consider these similarities: 

• All of the contestants have at least a common short-term goal, similar to the completion of a project.  
• Each individual has his or her own agenda.  While Survivor contestants want to get a big monetary reward, information technology workers might be vying for the same promotion, raise or the same position in a new project.  
• Individuals must participate in teams, members of which have not been selected by them, and must meet objectives, most of which are very difficult.  (It should be mentioned, however, that success in the typical information technology workplace does not require eating animal brains or live grubs.) 
• Both employees in your workplace and Survivor contestants must work under tremendous material and resource constraints.
• Subgroups (or alliances) arise who work together on activities that might not necessarily support the project.

  
  
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